[Beta] Frustration About Silicon Mining

[RLSa]

About the terraforming... this is way easier than people says.

You don't need to complete any terraform quest at all. Just teleport the PHQ to any terraform spot, construct the Bubble City project and after that the Aerial Maze. I think all this costs 90Mi.
The Aerial Maze is where you can train your pilots. A hundred at each time, until 4*. And a single each time from 4 to 5*.

I haven't completed a single terraform project, but trained more then 500 pilots to 4* and almost a hundred to 5*.

[Wultan]

What are doing miners with more stars better? Are they mine faster, find ore faster, shot khaaks better?

[Eyeklops]

What are doing miners with more stars better? Are they mine faster, find ore faster, shot khaaks better?

The difference between a 2* miner and 5* miner is almost 10x reduction in mining time. I won't let a pilot mine silicone unless they are 3* or better but prefer them to be at least 4*. I do not know if they find ore faster or shoot khaaks better.

If you are mining silicone you can get another boost to mining speed by making sure there is a resource probe nearby. I just stock every mining ship with 10 resource probes. Then I wait until they found a spot to mine and tell them to drop a probe there. After a while the area will have 15 or 20 probes scattered about the "nodes" NPC miners use.

[Sengar]

What I gathered so far, is to do terraforming in order to train pilots, and not bother scaling up production before you have a couple hundred 4 star pilots.

I written and deleted the following over and over again, now I try to cut to the chase:

Information about how game mechanics works are (very) hard to come by.

[Alm888]

What are doing miners with more stars better? Are they mine faster, find ore faster, shot khaaks better?

I will not send a miner on a mission without at least 4★ pilot and crew! An L-class miner with decent (4★ crew rating) crew will fill its cargo hold in just 5 minutes or so while a 1★ one would struggle for hours!
And no, I would not consider 2★ pilot even remotely competent and suitable for skill-intensive tasks. Inter-station ware transfer is its upper limit.

[oddible]

What are doing miners with more stars better? Are they mine faster, find ore faster, shot khaaks better?

I will not send a miner on a mission without at least 4★ pilot and crew! An L-class miner with decent (4★ crew rating) crew will fill its cargo hold in just 5 minutes or so while a 1★ one would struggle for hours!
And no, I would not consider 2★ pilot even remotely competent and suitable for skill-intensive tasks. Inter-station ware transfer is its upper limit.

Haha, are you playing modded? Where in the world would you get all those 4 star pilots? You'd spend hundreds of hours doing missions!

[RLSa]

What are doing miners with more stars better? Are they mine faster, find ore faster, shot khaaks better?

I will not send a miner on a mission without at least 4★ pilot and crew! An L-class miner with decent (4★ crew rating) crew will fill its cargo hold in just 5 minutes or so while a 1★ one would struggle for hours!
And no, I would not consider 2★ pilot even remotely competent and suitable for skill-intensive tasks. Inter-station ware transfer is its upper limit.

Haha, are you playing modded? Where in the world would you get all those 4 star pilots? You'd spend hundreds of hours doing missions!

Yeah... is a relief to get the Aerial Maze and never look a mission after anymore. Get seminars to all pilots is boring as hell.

[oddible]

Oh that's a Terraforming thing? Not there yet.

[Alm888]

Haha, are you playing modded? Where in the world would you get all those 4 star pilots? You'd spend hundreds of hours doing missions!

No, no mods. Just a crazy ton of missions. One just need to know what and where to pick. Resource surveys for Segaris Pioneers in Segaris/Gaian Prophecy can be completed in 15 seconds (provided one has ships pre-positioned on the spots), and mine removal ones for Antigone Republic in Segaris are not that far behind. Service crew with 4★ is easily obtained via construction vessels.
Moreover, one does not need that many 4★ pilots in the first place (about ten would suffice for a decent mining fleet). M-sized ore/silicon distributors do not need to be fancy (2+2/3★ will do).

[grapedog]

Also, as a side note, with 100 L miners, that ia a LOT of piers and cargo drones to quickly empty the ships that do come in.

[Sengar]

Also, as a side note, with 100 L miners, that ia a LOT of piers and cargo drones to quickly empty the ships that do come in.

That's actually not a problem, since the silicon miners are away for hours, only a hand full is unloading minerals at any time.